


Scars

by Alixtii



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Body Modification, Established Relationship, M/M, Male Protagonist, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Post-Movie, Present Tense, Scars, boyslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-04
Updated: 2010-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-08 17:29:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alixtii/pseuds/Alixtii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon knows every scar on Mal's body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunabee34 (Lorraine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/gifts).



Simon knows every scar on Mal's body.

Some he knows the stories behind; some he's treated himself. There's the bulletwound in his calf from the job on Heinlein; the scrape from the time he fell off the mule on Paquin; the faded remnants of the burns suffered when the compression coil blew (just like Kaylee said it would; you'd think he'd listen to her after what happened the last time she told him to replace the catalyzer and he didn't, but Mal is nothing if not stubborn).

There are many whose stories he doesn't know. He knows these scars no less intimately, but their etiology will be forever a mystery to him: which are from the war, which are from after (and he suspects there's a couple from before, too; wars do not make men violent, men make wars so). He could ask Mal, but he doubts he'd get an answer, or at least not a useful answer ("I got shot" is _not_ sufficient explanation for what Simon can already see quite well is a bullet wound), not without a medically sound reason (or at least a medically sound-sounding reason) why he needs to know, and perhaps not even then.

The landscape of Mal's scars (surprisingly few, given the circumstances, which is to say quite a lot since it's a miracle the man's alive at all) is a mystery to Simon, gives testimony with every square inch of bared skin that as intimately as Simon knows Mal and his body, there will forever be things are forever hidden. For there are scars (so many, even in comparison to those on his skin) under the surface which Simon can only guess at.

But that's okay; the thing about Mal's old scars is, they tend to get covered by the new ones. Still there, but transformed, something different than they once were, a synthesis of past and present. Which, when you get down to it, is a good synecdoche for the man as a whole now that Simon's entered Mal's life.

There's the obvious, of course; Simon brought River with him, and when Mal opened that Pandora's box and found a frightened girl inside he unleashed a world of troubles on himself and his crew. Hunted by the Alliance with renewed fervor, the very shape of life on Serenity changed. Miranda brought changes even more drastic: a Wash-shaped absence on the bridge, and a 'verse once again in chaos as new uprisings repeat the mistakes of past ones.

But Simon knows there are little things, too. He knows that Mal sleeps better, more soundly, with Simon in the bed next him, their bodies nestled together, radiating heat. Simon swears Mal wakes up happier, too, just a bit less angry at the world. But that still leaves a whole lot of anger, so it's hard to tell.

But Kaylee thinks so too. "You make the Captain happy," she says, and if there's a sadness in her tone that he never managed to be able to do that for her, or at least not for very long, there's also a blessing--a benediction, a release--there too, and forgiveness. He cherishes it.

And if Kaylee says so it must be true; after all, she and Mal share a lover in _Serenity_.

Simon's gained a couple of scars himself now; occupational hazard of anyone on a pirate ship, even the ship's doctor. There's the faded remnant of a gash above his left wrist from the time River turned _Serenity_ upside down and the artificial gravity didn't quite keep up with her. There's two separate bullet wounds. And, like Mal, he's developed scars that aren't shown on his skin, too--but the thing is, he thinks those sort just might heal, or at least fade so they're no longer noticeable unless you look for them, like the mark on his finger from the time River bit him when he was twelve.

He traces his hand over a scar on Mal's shoulder. He likes the look of it, he decides. There's a beauty to it, an aesthetic rightness.

If their scars are what make Mal and Simon the men who they are today, Simon supposes, then he will accept them as the gift they are.


End file.
